"I'll tell you," said Ideala. "There was a small boy with a big voice standing at the corner of the market-place this afternoon. He had a sheaf of evening papers under his arm, and was yelling with much enthusiasm to an edified crowd:--'Noose of the War! Hawful mutilation of the dead! Fearful collision in the Channel! Eighty-eight lives lost! Narrative of survivors! Thrilling details! Shindy in Parl'ment! Hirish members to the front again! 'Orrible haccident in our own town! The Lady Claudia's bust!'" "Ideala, how _dare_ you?"--but just then the carriage stopped, and we had to get out. The good Bishop met us in the hall. Ideala positively declined to go upstairs when he asked her. "It is too much trouble," she said, not seeing in her absence what was meant. "I would rather leave my things here." "But I am afraid I _must_ trouble you," the Bishop answered, in despair. "The fact is, my wife is not so well this evening, and she was afraid of the cold, and is staying in her own sitting-room." The "sitting-room" was a snug apartment, warm, cosy, luxurious, and we found a genial little party of intimate acquaintances there when we arrived. Ideala's husband was not one of them. He did not take her out much at that time. Probably he was engaged in some private pursuit of his own, and insisted on her going everywhere alone to keep her out of the way. A little while before he would scarcely allow her to pay a call without him. But, as a rule, whatever his mood was, she did as he wished--and provoked him sometimes, I think, by her patient compliance; a little resistance would have made the exercise of his authority more exciting. When we entered the sitting-room "an ominous silence feel on the group," which was broken at last by one of the ladies remarking that a kind heart was an admirable thing. Another agreed, and made some observations on the merits of self-sacrifice generally. "But some people are not satisfied with merely _doing_ a good deed," a gentleman declared, with profound gravity. "They think there is no merit in it if they do not suffer for it in some way themselves." There was a good deal more of this kind of thing, and we were beginning to feel rather out of it, when presently the preternatural gravity of the party was broken by a laugh, and then it was explained. Ideala had gone to a neighbouring town one day by train, and before she started a poor woman got into the carriage. The woman had a third-class ticket, but she was evidently ill, and when the guard came and wanted to turn her out, Ideala took pity on her, insisted on changing tickets, and travelled third class herself. The woman had been to the Palace, and described the incident to the Bishop's wife that morning, and she had just told her guests, wondering who the lady could have been, and they in turn had put their heads together and decided that there was no one in the community but Ideala who would have done the thing in that way.